Pirating movies is 'more lucrative than heroin'

ORGANISED crime syndicates including bikie gangs have moved into DVD and internet piracy, with some channelling millions of dollars in illicit profits into drug dealing ventures.

They are making their money off the back of movies like The Dark Knight, of which pirated DVDs have already been seized in Australia, and locally funded film The Bank Job, which was on DVD in Australia before its release on the big screen.

Australia is now second only to China in the Asia-Pacific region for the number of pirated DVDs seized, according to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.

Neil Gann, AFACT director of operations, said the growing sophistication of the pirate industry meant the big players were taking over from computer geeks and mum-and-dad" operations.

More than $233 million a year was being stolen from the country's film industry – including video hire stores and suburban cinemas – and ending up in the pockets of criminals.

Mr Gann said the massive profit margins in movie piracy had taken it to new levels.

While heroin had a mark-up of 360 per cent from Iran to the streets of western cities, pirated DVDs had profit margins of 1000 per cent, minimal start-up costs and less risk.

"The money is then financing other criminal activity," Mr Gann said.

"We now have the police recognising the involvement of organised crime and we had specific examples of bikie gangs being involved."

In the latest crackdown, internet providers are working with the authorities and sending automatic warning messages to people who use piracy technologies such as BitTorrent.

The Australian Federal Police's Intellectual Property crime unit is now following the money trails in the same way it does with drug dealers.

The theft that went worldwide

It was at the 8.30pm screening in a western Sydney Hoyts cinema that Jose Duarte filmed The Simpsons Movie on his mobile phone.

By 2am the next morning, 24 hours before the movie was released in the US, he had uploaded his pirated copy to veoh.com.

Movie piracy is easy. The average time it takes for a film to appear online after its release is 3.6 days.

Duarte, 24, of Prairiewood, made nothing from his sole enterprise except infamy. It did, however, cost him a criminal conviction and a $1000 fine.

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